5 Things in Video Games That You Never Used To Pay For

Gamers today are odd creatures, the kind of people who can rage about the cost of DLC one moment, and the next minute new DLC releases for their favorite game it’s “OH! Three new costumes for this one character for the low-low price of $15?! TAKE MY MONEY!” This specific behavior got me thinking about how I spend money on games. Has the amount I spend changed over the years? Has the price of certain things gone up? What’s different about buying games in today’s market versus buying games in the yester-years of the last generation of home consoles?

I spend more money on things that have gotten more expensive. Which, you know… whatever. Things cost money, markets fluctuate, and prices go up and down. But what I spend money on has changed. Publishers have figured out that they can charge money for things that used to be part of a complete, finished game.

5Time

Charging people money to extend the amount of time they can play your game is a rather insidious practice that has gained popularity among many mobile developers. Candy Crush Saga is a very good example of a game that only allows you to play for a specific period of time. Once you hit the time limit, or run out of lives, you have the option of spending money to increase the number of lives you have or decrease the amount of the time you are locked out of the game.

I’d like to be able to say that the console and PC market is immune to this kind of skullduggery, but the release of The WarZ proved that that wasn’t the case. Still, it remains something of a rarity outside of the mobile gaming market. Hopefully, it stays that way.

4Collectibles

Gone are the days when having collectibles in your game meant jumping on a Goomba’s head and watching a coin pop out of its ass. Yes, most of today’s games contain collectibles. But, the games that focus on collectibles, like the Assassin’s Creed franchise or Sleeping Dogs, also use the design principle to target the completionist gamer. You know, the one that won’t consider a game to be complete until every castle and house has been thoroughly searched, every weapon procured, and every NPC talked to.

Today’s DLC tends to have new castles and homes to ransack, new weapons to procure, and plenty of new NPCs to talk to. So, of course the completionist gamer is going to have a field day. The recent release of the Assassin’s Creed III DLC is a good example. Not only is the story of The Tyranny of King Washington told through three separate DLC packs, but each has its own collectibles. And believe me, fans of the Assassin’s Creed series go absolutely bat-shit crazy for collectibles. And who can forget the now infamous Horse Armor DLC for Oblivion, which was nothing more than a glorified collectible?

3Characters

Again, there was a time when games would ship with all the characters on the disc (or cartridge, as the case may be). Any unlockable characters the game included were unlocked by performing feats of a seemingly impossible nature, à la Super Smash Bros. Melee. For the most part, this practice only applies to fighting games. Let me be clear: I have absolutely no problem paying money for characters that are in development after the original game ships to retail stores. That’s extra content that you aren’t entitled to just because you bought the game on release day.

What I have a problem with is DLC characters being finished before the game ships, and being locked in the on-disc code, where the only way to unlock the already complete code is to pay money. Capcom tried this with Street Fighter X Tekken, including the DLC code for a bunch of DLC characters on-disc when the game shipped. The only reason anyone ever found out about Capcom’s poor business practices was because someone decided to comb through the on-disc code.

I’m making a list and checking it twice, and Capcom, you’re naughty and not very nice. The situation with Capcom makes me wonder how many other fighting games have done the same thing, but haven’t been caught because no-one decided to investigate the matter.

2Multiplayer

Two words: Online passes. The hay-days of couch multiplayer are far behind us. Now, multiplayer has moved firmly into the online sphere. Which is great! I play more multiplayer today than I ever did before, and for the most part it’s a fun experience. But, the method of charging players who buy a used game money to play online with their friends is like car dealers charging you by the kilometer for every extra person you have in your car beside yourself. It just seems unreasonable.

NetherRealm Studios learned their lesson after 2011’s Mortal Kombat fiasco, and thankfully Injustice: Gods Among Us required no online pass. But, the likes of EA and Ubisoft are still championing the use of the online pass as a viable way to make up for the lost revenue incurred from the sale of a used game—lost revenue that is entirely a myth, by the way.

1Story

I don’t like DLC that is in any way connected to the story presented in the original game, because odds are that DLC contains storyline that probably should have been included in the retail version. I like the sort of DLC that was recently released for Far Cry 3 and Dishonored, things that put the player in the shoes of another character before or after the timeline presented in the original game, as is the case with the DLC for Dishonored; or, absolutely crazy and entirely unrelated DLC, like the DLC for Far Cry 3. The From Ashes DLC for Mass Effect 3 is a good example of the kind of DLC I hate.

It contains information so relevant and pertinent to the rest of the game, and the previous two games in the franchise, that it’s hardly justifiable as separate content. You also get things like the DLC for Asura’s Wrath and Assassin’s Creed II. In the case of Asura’s Wrath, the DLC included major parts of the story that were left unexplained and unexplored. We aren’t talking ancillary plot here either, we are talking primary plot. Then you have things like the DLC for Assassin’s Creed II. Never mind the fact that the two missing memory strains the DLC gave you access to were staring you in the face, taunting you throughout your entire playthrough, every time you opened the pause menu.

Ubisoft might as well programmed Ezio to turn around, give me the finger, and say, “You know you’re going to buy it”, every time I hit the pause button on my controller. And who wasn’t going to buy that DLC? It was the only hope anyone had of making any sense of whatever the fuck it was that was going on in that game’s story. Yes, it’s hard to write stories for videogames. I understand that. But, if you’re having to complete your story with DLC, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Nickeled and dimed, I tell you! Nickeled and dimed! Do you spend more or less money on games now than you used you to? Can you think of anything else that never used to cost money? Let us know in the comments below!

Jon is not David Cage. When he's not writing about video games, he is playing them, often times poorly. He plays too much Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and enjoys just about anything that has to do with bacon. He needs more followers on Twitter @WordsmithJon.

Sadly, pay to win, pay to play, ‘internet connection required’, and gallons of DLC and DRM are the way now. It sucks. Even the smaller devs and studios are doing it. At least they haven’t stopped used game sales. Yet. Although, try finding used PC games…

This is what happens to all arts and entertainment when it gets really big and profitable. Look at music and movies. Remember making mix tapes? Remember recording off of tv onto VHS? You can’t do anything like that anymore. The people who run the companies aren’t the designers, artists, and gamers. They’re assholes with MBA’s. And they all hate the illusory threat of piracy. Seriously, pirated games, movies and albums don’t cut into any profit margins anywhere nearly as much as they’d have you believe. They punish honest, loyal customers with their bullshit. We put up with it, though. What’s the alternative? Turning it all off and going outside? No thanks, lol.

Nick

Sad thing is the one that is THE MOST insulting one is the time problem and also if the DLC is outrageous. For example, ALL of the Dead or Alive DLCs are just nasty. Around 15 dollars JUST for A costume. Insulting. Problem is, I’m a sucker and will buy it anyhow. I was smarter and bought the DoA5 Ultimate to at least get a chunk of the DLC but they still added more. -sigh-. Ironically there is a small game about DLC and how it is just money grabbing. Called DLC Quest. 5 bucks. Worth it for a joke game. Though even people are complaining about how THAT is a ridiculous price. I can live with some situations. Such as Disgaea. The series are fun and a good fair priced game with loads of content. You can easily say that the DLC is a somewhat fair. Despite Disgaea 3 having a 50 dollar DLC complete bundle (which again is not too bad since it gives you about 30 DLC characters and items, stages, etc.) each is about only 2 bucks apiece and maps are only $1. That is about how much a song on itunes would normally cost you. Pretty much it depends on what the content is and what price.

Guest

I only tend to buy Game of the Year – Everything Included packages for AAA games that are laden with tons of dlc. Usually Steam or another distributor offers a package deal if there isn’t an official bundle. Get it during a sale, and you’ve made out like a bandit. It just takes longer to get the game. Most of my new spending on games goes into bundles, where I buy ten times the number of games I used to, for one fifth the cost, and usually end up with at least one title worth the price of admission and then some.

Honestly, I am at a loss as to the Mass Effect series, and dlc. There’s just so much of it, it would cost almost another hundred dollars over the Trilogy package. None of the dlc is available through channels I look at anyhow, so I’m not going to ever see the sale prices, if there even are any. I purchased Mass Effect 1 and 2, and Dragon Age 1 and 2 in sales. I haven’t played any of them due to my completionist nature yelling at me any time I contemplate it. This from a fan of Bioware since at least the first Neverwinter Nights.

I haven’t bought used since switching over entirely to PC with digital distribution after the Xbox and PS2 generation ended. Even then, I only ever bought single player games used, so online passes never became much of a problem.

Daniel Luplow

There is a lot of bitching going on for what I feel is a well written article. I would like to point out that the people comparing the video games in this article to arcade games are comparing apples to potatoes. The gaming model has switched from owning a game and playing as much as you like to “We grant your permission to play our game, and if you want to do it more often than we have allotted, then you must pay”. This makes sense for small game developers to put their games out for free while still being compensated, but the majority of companies doing this are large names such as Zynga who are milking their customers big bucks for small rewards. Such as games where gems are incredibly valuable and you can get them by playing, but to get any significant number of them you must buy gems, which can cost 5$ or 6$ for 30 gems, a number you could reach in a few days time, or have right now for a small fee. The problem is as soon as you use the gems you’re stuck in the same place, you need 30 more gems to do particular things and are stuck choosing between going the long route yourself or just buying some more.

The thing that I disagree with in this article though online multiplayer passes. I believe distributed server games such as Call of Duty which use a decentralized network to facilitate playing online should never charge for multiplayer passes for their games, but some games such as BattleField have dedicated servers which cost money to maintain. They mitigate some of the costs by allowing gamers to purchase admin rights to servers and other features, but in the end running the servers is a large costs and I believe in this case it is acceptable to charge a measly $10 for used owners to play online.

delusions

lmfao @ you idiots that would even consider paying a cent after the initial purchase! – don’t buy crap, and they won’t make you – its simple as that DUH!

aggy_0

The obvious answer is that we never used to pay for them because up until this generation of consoles, we were never able to pay for them. But as we’ve all become almost permanently connected to the internet and more comfortable with small financial transactions online, we now can have access to these things.

Of course we didn’t have access to any extra characters or powerups that weren’t built into the game. We couldn’t download expansions or extra characters or powerups even if we wanted to.

So this complaint amounts to bitching about having more options than we used to. Be proud. You’re complaining about something you can completely ignore. You could happily go on without buying a thing, and your game would be just as it was.

daman4567

Assasin’s Creed II? I can totally ignore the fact that after I pay for the game I have to buy the real ending and the rest of the story. They don’t even act like the DLC is an extra, as you need to buy it to get 100% in anything. You can literally not get any part of the game fully completed unless you buy the DLC. Either delay the release of the game or make that part of it free.

Collectibles – Meh, i always try to do everything, but pay for them? i’m no fool.

Characters – i LOATHE it, selling an incomplete game should be illegal, adding extras is good, cutting content and then charge for it is really wrong.

Multiplayer – Same hate, you buy the damn FPS FOR multiplayer, it’s NOT an added feature, it’s something you expect to be there, to be played in the right fo purchase.

Story – Yeah, the worst of all, dumbfuck developers cutting story elements?
really? how many sales vs boycotts? is really better to angry your fans forever and steal a dime than having a loyal dacade old support?
Fuck you!

“Five things… you never used to pay for” – great title. But (from a
mobile developer’s perspective) I would ask “what’s the one thing in
video games that people always used to pay for but do no now?” The
answer is, of course, the game itself!

I will be the first to
admit that there are some companies who have you pay for the game, then
pay more for all the extras. But from my own experience, I’ve found that
(on mobile at least) there’s at least 100-fold drop-off in downloads
between free games and paid games with a free trial… and a further
100-fold drop off between them and flat out no-trial paid titles.

Back
in the 8-bit days, I thought nothing of paying a couple of pounds for a
new game on tape and if it turned out to be crap, “ah well, it’s only a
couple of quid”. But now, it almost feels as if mobile gamers have the
attitude of “I pay my monthly tarriff, why should I pay for anything
else?” This may not be a problem for big studios, but for indies, who
make games for their love of game making and to test the boundaries of
convention, but often do not have the budget to market their work, it’s
soul destroyiing to see a title that has been laboured over for months
to disappear without a trace and making virtually no return.

So
rather than direct your anger at the monitization method, direct it at
the big studios who exploit all possible means to maximise what they
take. And if you don’t like it, boycott them and support indie titles.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=746875316 Jon ‘Jonny’ Preece

no couch multiplayer isa great loss

http://www.facebook.com/tony.driver.9 Tony Driver

#1. Time…. Really? Ever play Gauntlet? Every played any game in an arcade?

http://www.facebook.com/miguelvilhena5 Miguel Vilhena

He’s clearly talking about home entertainment. He’s not talking about arcade. When you bought or dowloaded a game, unless it was shareware or demo, you got it. You weren’t nickeled.

Squints753

Really? How did this get past creative? Time and multiplayer were things you paid for since the beginning of gaming. You may be young, but there were these things called arcades where you had to pay for time and to play with another player.

http://www.facebook.com/miguelvilhena5 Miguel Vilhena

I don’t recall paying for playing multiplayer in Unreal Tournament or Quake. I don’t remember arcades limiting the time you played, just the lives you got with sometimes insane difficulty. But I disgress, I think arcades aren’t the aim of the article, but home entertainment. You didn’t pay for time or multiplayer on your pc or consoles till much after its inception.

Squints753

Nope, you did. You obviously never played games on AOL or Mindspring, where you were charged by the hour to play games online.

furrydog

with how negative you are being i can see you never had a good exp with your gaming and it not are fault you choose to go with AOL, a-wall of nope unless you pay more for what you were all ready paying for. but yeah… if you used reg internet “not an extra pay program to help safe guard your CPU unless you were dumb in your surfing” you only payed for net access and the cost to buy the game once then it was free. I still go on to the old PS2 and play some ratchet and clank battle grounds and they is still not charging for it

Avaddon666

I think he is talking about playing online games around 1995-1997 when companies like Compuserve charged you per hour to connect to the internet and then the phone company billed you per minute……you probably was swimming in your daddy’s sack back then child

Kris Gokuraku

Maybe he was but i know i wasn’t, you didn’t pay for the online multiplayer. You payed to be connected to the internet. Not the same thing but i guess your brain is too demented to see it you old fart.

See what i did there?

Avaddon666

So being charged for hours and hours of online gaming via your internet connection isn’t paying for it? ok….maybe semantics to you but the cost is still there or maybe you’re too much of a troll to see it…